Jury, MacRae

Jury, by Mary MacRae:

I'd noticed her hands before, large and quiet
in her lap as she listened through all the words
for the sound she wanted, the call from her scrap
of daughter, fed on demand
while we waited

and I thought of how she'd hold that feather-weight
in one hand while the other cupped the warm head
with its beating fontanelle close to her breast
as if that soft suck and tug
were all the world

and she could forget the knife, (one of a set),
with the serrated edge we'd seen already,
an ordinary kitchen knife, its ten-inch blade
nestling securely inside
a cling-wrapped box.

But it was the photo made me cry - her hand,
in colour, the palm flat for the camera,
fingers stretched apart to show the base of each
cut to the bone, ragged wounds
only half healed:

how painful it must have been to open out
the sheltering fist, uncurl her fingers and feel
the tight scabs crack, exposed for an indifferent
photographer to record
the naked truth.

And the moment all the others led up to
and away from - the moment before her hand
lost its grip on a handle made slippery with
his blood, slid down the blade? - that,
we couldn't see.

I particularly like the last stanza, and especially the lines “And the moment all the others led up to / and away from…”